To think coronavirus has made some people regret their life choices?

[FTMF30]

After a few conversations with people and seeing some posts on here, a lot of people are really upset about the implications CV has had on them. Eg.

• not being able to see family - because they moved hundreds of miles away from them.
• feeling cooped up/claustrophobic - because they wanted to live in a fancy city apartment rather than a cheaper place further out
• feeling angry they are getting no Government support because they are recently self employed (me or any other reason

I could write an entire list but you get the jist. My AIBU is, do you think people will make major life changes after this, e.g. move closer to family or just continue to feel sad about it but make no changes?

Personally, I felt invigorated when I became self employed and felt brave for entering new territory way out of my comfort zone, but CV has really humbled that feeling.

With the whole living away from family, my friends/family who are complaining about this are irritating me tbh. Prior to CV they would complain how it's so hard to see family, how they sometimes feel left out or how they are worrying about their elderly parents. Did they not consider these things before they decided to move hundreds of miles away? I don't suspect these people (in my circle) will be moving anytime soon so why continue to complain? AIBU in that respect?

You're so right OP. As soon as this is over I'm going to move next door to my sister to a nice little semi with a herbaceous border and get a job in a factory. Fuck my fancy apartment and high fallutin ways; not so clever that I saw covid coming, eh? It's back to homely values and banana bread for me. I know my place.

I think people will re-evaluate their choices, not necessarily regret what has come before.

Dh is Irish and I'm Australian. We left London 18 months ago to move home to Australia. I personally couldn't be more relieved at our good fortune. We are so lucky to be where we are at this time.

My DP are 40 minutes down the road and after living so far away it felt great last week when finally we could get in the car and go and see them again.

The flip is my dh is far from his family and unsure when we can travel to see them again.

Not really. We make our life choices based on the information we have available at the time.

No one knew that some industries which had been working perfectly well for decades would suddenly basically be shut down. No one knew that childcare wouldn't be available, or that everyone would be working from home and no one would have access to the parks and other facilities of a city.

And maybe lots of people will change their lives and try and Pandemic proof them again and maybe that'll work or maybe the disease will burn out and the next crisis will be 'people who all moved into the country where there is no work and soaring poverty' or whatever. You don't know. You just work with what you have.

@SantanaOhNaNa I'm guessing by your sarcasm you've taken offence to my post 🙃. I was just asking a question but, as a PP has said, some people have taken it as being goady. This wasn't my intention, just wanted to see if people regret anything because of CV, you could have just answered the question sensibly.

@Olliephaunt4eyes Very good reasoning. I have been pretty hard on myself with a few choices made. But they were choices based on the situation at the time. In many ways, there's no use in feeling sorry for myself about it. Just pick myself up and crack on with things!

It’s definitely made us value having outdoor space and realising how important a big garden is in our next house.

Pre corona DP was absolutely killing himself working long hours 7 days a week and was totally burnt out. Being forced to stop working for 2 months made him realise how ridiculous his previous schedule was and he’s decided to take at least one day a week off which I’m extremely pleased about. Luckily he’s self-employed so largely chooses his hours

I’m living outside the U.K. Been homesick and wishing I lived nearer my parents for a while. Now it seems likely I won’t see them for a long time and that has spurred me into action. I am actively applying for jobs near them, even though the country I’m in is dealing with Coronavirus much better than the U.K. and staying here is the safer choice.

This current lifestyle is so different to what most of us were used to that it's no wonder our life decisions don't always work well with it.

It would seem incredibly depressing to make your life choices based on the potential for a pandemic to strike.

Not regret no. No point regretting.
But thinking ahead
"For the next pandemic I intend to be xxxxxx..."

For me flat/house with garden and proper WFH space as moved to one with just tiny balcony. Fine when you can go out to outdoor pool or long day in park with toilet access.... not when facilities closed....

Live close ish to elderly aunt and adult ds but cannot visit anyway

I don't have any regrets. The biggest change for me will be the opportunities available to me and my children in the future such as foreign travel but that was always going to be different than it has been due to climate change and population increases around the world. I'm a glass half full kind of person though which I feel immensely grateful for so I tend to work with the positives rather than dwell on the negatives anyway.

OK well YANBU as I'm sure people do have some regrets, personally I don't and am pretty grateful

I won't be making any changes, I made the big life changes before all this - changed career, moved to the area of the country I wanted to be in and so on. You don't save the 'Sunday best' for a rainy day, you use it everyday is my view.

The one main thing this has done is made me feel how distant I am from my family because I dont have a car.

Its actually confirmed to me that I might as move to the other end of the country, just need to convince DP

I don't regret moving to the UK to be with my DH, as my marriage is happy and the UK made far more financial sense due to his work. Does that mean I can't miss my family? No, but it has always been something I've considered.

However, in the current situation, I am 39 weeks pregnant and my parents will obviously not be able to fly in any time soon to meet their first grandchild. That is not something that any of us anticipated, seeing as in February, my parents had plans to come stay with us for nearly a month after the birth. You are being unreasonable.

Living away from family makes no difference in a lockdown scenario. You aren't supposed to be mixing households with next door, let alone miles away.

No changes for us, except for how we do business as we can't operate the same as previously, for a long time.
We are moving to the countryside in Wales, but were doing this anyway, just had to put it on hold.

Whatever choices you make in life will have a downside or two, people are allowed to reflect upon that fact sometimes

I just wish they'd stop blaming other people and take responsibility for those choices.

YABU. We no longer live in the kind of society where families live within close proximity, get married when they're about 21, move to a house within 3 streets of their original family home and live there for the remainder of their lives.

Some of the reasons behind those changes are also very positive. Today's society is a mobile one, but the upside of that is that it provides a lot more opportunities. Many more people these days are going to university and entering graduate professions. In niche markets, there might not be a job opportunity available in the close vicinity, especially if you've grown up in a region which is lacking in these opportunities.

Or they might, like my DH, have moved away from their family of origin because said family did nothing but make unreasonable demands, stamp on his boundaries or create trouble.

In some cases moving away from the childhood home wouldn't have been a choice but a matter of necessity. In terms of employment it's perfectly reasonable to 'move hundreds of miles away' and still miss our parents. But no one can live their lives for their parents, and no reasonable parent would expect this: they'd want their children to carve out an independent live on terms they see fit, and in ways that make them happy. In none of these cases would moving away be a source of regret.

I needed to be far away from my parents when I left home many years ago. Now they are older and I have my own children things have changed in many ways and yes, I wish I could have been geographically closer to them in the last 2 months so I could have helped with essential care. But I don’t think it’s a regret exactly - I am not sure I would have made any different decisions.

I think for many people it feels like the options weren’t necessary available to them to choose the lifestyle some others have. I think this whole situation is then pointing out the inequality that was already around us.

For example, my DH pointed out yesterday that in general it seems like people at his work in their mid 50s and older (who bought homes in the 90s) live in huge houses with gardens and those younger all mostly live in tiny flats. This is irrespective of seniority at work as salary differences make minimal difference in comparison to the housing market changes. Working in offices makes this far less obvious than all these online meetings where you get to see just how differently others live.

It’s definitely made us more aware of how poor our home is in comparison to many other peoples and this has lead to me spending a lot of time looking on Rightmove and fantasising about moving somewhere isolated. We have discussed whether we could continue to work remotely most of the time and have a much better quality of life.

Oh and I definitely do not regret the choice I made to never be a commuter on the Tube!

Yanbu.
A lot of people are reconsidering their relationships if this site is anything to go on.
I predict a big rise in divorce applications.

You can't live life with your own family by where your parents live! My parents would hate for me to move any further away from them than we have already (1hr drive) but they certainly wouldn't guilt trip us, and we certainly wouldn't decide against it either! We moved because the area I grew up in isn't the same, it's too busy. Regrets are pointless, just move on.

I had to move from my rural hometown to a city in order to work as there are no jobs where I'm from It wasn't exactly a choice to move miles away from family, it was a necessity.

Actually it has made me wonder whether some people will look out onto their driveways at their large expensive cars and wonder whether it is money well spent. The vehicles are costing them many hundreds of pounds a month in loan or lease costs, and are currently sitting there all but useless.